<nettime> Let the children...

[tom9351@iperbole.bologna.it]

PREFACE TO "LASCIATE CHE I BIMBI. PEDOFILIA: PRETESTO PER LA CACCIA ALLE
STREGHE"
[Let The Children... Pedophilia as a Pretext for a Witch Hunt] by Luther
Blissett, Castelvecchi Edizioni, Rome 1997



The children of a French choir were supposed to go on a Christmas tour to
Belgium, but the tour was cancelled because parents and teachers considered
Belgium "a dangerous country for the children". So they'll barricade
themselves at home, the kids will sing 'White Christmas' for Mom and Dad
and the bolted door will keep this wicked world outside. It's yet another
(real) bedtime story to tell under the Xmas tree in a western night. Here
we can see prejudice and cowardice turning into total idiocy. This society
got rid of  real collective tragedies long ago (wars, plague, revolutions,
repression, famine), and now she invents an Evil Country, i.e. Belgium, in
order to wrap herself up with paranoia and indulge in an armoured
cowardice. A group of unaware children was instilled with the folly of
adult media junkies. I often recall the terrible, merciless sentence I used
to hear muttered by old men: "Every second generation needs a war".
Possibly this is the only way to tell real fear and pain from the ludicrous
nightmare of a spoilt society.
- Michele Serra, "L'Unita'", 24 December 1996

There are two problems. The first one is that of real rape, with which
women and - more specifically - feminists have dealt perfectly. The second
one is that of the reactions of the public opinion. On this level there are
such secondary effects as manhunt and moral mobilisation.
- Guy Hockkenghem, from radio programme "Dialogues", France-Culture, 4
April 1978


One of the largest campaigns of repression ever - a witch hunt sending us
back to Salem 1692 - is taking place under our eyes. It is inspired, at
least to all appearance, by the most noble of 'good intentions' - so
indisputable, so apparently 'natural': to protect our children. To protect
them from 'monsters', from the plots of the Pedophile International, from
Evil, violent TV, computers... To prevent their *innocence* from being
profaned by life and sexuality. Their innocence, however, is just an
ideological hoax pulled by adult authorities (parents, priests, teachers,
psychologists, politicians).
In this book I advise you to distrust all those who raise hell about the
protection of children, because they stand in the way of a real, necessary
*liberation of non-adults*.
I am trying to argue about moral lynching, homophobia, bigotry, hatred for
alleged 'perverts', front page 'monsters' and whatever else is
characterising the 'pedophile hunt' which is striking many countries
(including Italy) and the Internet.
The child has become the one and only candidate to the role of  Perfect
Victim. Any conspiracy theory about child-molesting bogey men is inexorably
bound to success. Is there someone who doesn't want to prove a good
Christian hangman when it's a matter of (alleged) child rapists? Unofficial
abrogation of the Presumption of Innocence, never-ending detention, media
pillory, electronic filing of 'pedophiles', chemical castration... Nothing
is likely to seem excessive to these good-natured headsmen, crusaders
fighting shadows.
Recently, we even saw Batman overthrowing a gang of 'pedophiles'. This is
interesting: according to Bryan Talbot, the adventures of the 'Dark Knight'
are imaginary, they just take place in Bruce Wayne's head. Wayne suffers
from hysteric dissociation syndrome. In a Talbot's subversive Batman story
titled "Masks", a psychiatrist tells Wayne:

'Your attachment to the identity of "Batman" is an expedient by which you
rule your world [...] To you the world is too chaotic and you need to
IMPOSE an order on it. It's a typical FASCIST impulse, many people suffer
from it. However, as soon as you wear a mask, there emerges your second
personality. MIGHTY. POWERFUL. Able to FACE any trouble. But,
unfortunately, you've gone too far. You 've stitched on yourself a
totalitarian MYTHOLOGY, a deep-rooted hallucinatory neurosis.'

I reckon this neurosis is similar to that which afflicts those who see
'pedophiles' everywhere. The 'pedophile' - like the Jew for those who
believe in the World-wide Jewish Plot or the anti-Semite for those who
serve in the opposite army - stands for everything that makes the world a
puzzling mess. The 'pedophile' - as well as his horror twin, the 'Satanist'
- is perfect for the role of spectacular slaughterer, thereby he's *the
real victim*, he whom everyone wants to stone to death, the scapegoat of a
society that - despite being ridden with voyeurism, porno-stimulated and
media-sexualised - is more and more frustrated, sadly horny, sex-frightened
and monogamous.


AFTER THE FUNERAL OF FREEDOM

This is not an anthology of texts about 'pedophilia' and repression. My
method is plagiarism, to pile up material, cut and mix pre-existing texts,
make the phrases collide with each other, quote and re-write.
It is not an instant-book either. I have investigated a long-term
repressive trend which started twenty years ago in the pre-digital USA,
paralleled the unfolding of the Internet and reached this Europe of
Maastricht, nay, this Europe of Marcinelle, where it's undergoing further,
baneful mutations. Unfortunately this book is not going to be outdated, for
witch hunts are always all the fashion.
It was not easy to write the book: after all, what is the target of an
essay on such a controversial subject, written from an unpopular point of
view by an anonymous multiple name bearer [...]?
Moreover, should I soften the blows, make my points in the context of a
'democratic' discussion so that liberals - potential allies in the struggle
against the new Inquisition - wouldn't  be repelled? What could I do? The
only thing I was absolutely sure of  was that the best part of the people
interested in the myths and deeds of Luther Blissett would share most, if
not all, of my opinions. Anybody who understands the implications of a
multiple name (a radical critique of  Identity) also knows that the ruling
culture is built upon anal retentiveness and the removal of children's
sexuality.  Thus I didn't soften any blow, the readers (either democratic
or subversive) will know how to deal with this, and take what they like.
For example:

[In Belgium] capital re-structures itself with an operation similar to our
Clean Hands inquiry, with anti-pedophile hysteria instead of bribery. I
used to despise those non-committed, handcuff-fetishist lynching mobs
paving the way for the advent of a new Fuhrer. I used to despise the
short-sightedness of those proletarians enjoying the show of our
powers-that-be re-structuring themselves in order to fuck the working class
harder and better. Now I can't help but despising the torch-light
processions of Flemish and Walloon families, and workers going on strike to
express solidarity to a judge! The "pedophilia" of Marc Dutroux and his
influential backers (it isn't pedophilia actually, it's rape and murder) is
just a diverting spectacle, as was "terrorism" twenty years ago.
- Luther Blissett, 'Non giocatevi la testa col Diavolo', *Zero in
condotta*, 8 November 1996, p.25.

As I wrote, I didn't know what I could take for granted: after two decades
of a sexual and cultural counter-revolution imposed by the priests of all
work-worshipping, family-loving cults (including blank-minded sociologists,
psychologists and philosophers, AIDS technocrats, reactionary currents of
the feminist movement etc.), the radical critique is forced to repeat the
alphabet about censorship, homosexuality, transgenderism, children's
sexuality and non-monogamous relationships... As regards the younger
generations, grown up during and after the 'backwash', we can repeat the
things Karl Marx wrote about the German people in the *Contribution To The
Critique Of Hegel's Philosophy Of Right*:

We have shared the restorations of modern nations without ever having
shared their revolutions. We have been restored, firstly, because other
nations dared to make revolutions, and, secondly, because other nations
suffered counter-revolutions - on one hand, because our masters were
scared, and, on the other, because they were not scared. With our shepherds
to the fore, we only kept company with freedom, on the day of its burial.

Thus we're back to basics, this is the day after the funeral.
The only point which doesn't need to be made again is the end of the
family. I mean, I know that this institution (based on mutual castration,
authority and legal sexual slavery) still exists and is the main subject of
both talk shows and parliamentary debates. This is disgusting and
depressing. And yet the inexorable, liberating, *anti-economic* explosion
of the family is under everyone's eyes. The fate of the family depends on
the fate of wage-work. Due to the decline of the society of full
employment, the members of nuclear families are going nuts, and this is
especially true for those families that rely on just one income. Fathers,
mothers and children can no longer stand forced cohabitation, and are
starting to slaughter each other, smash each other's face in with iron
bars, shot and strangle each other, take each other's eyes off for
seemingly futile reasons. The nuclear family is dying, literally. If we
managed to channel this violence (which is strictly related with the
proletarianisation of the middle classes) and turn it against those powers
responsible for our - material, human, sexual - misery, a new kind of
liberation would become possible.
Of course, no Second Sexual Revolution will be feasible without a drastic
reduction of the working hours, and the shrinkage of both "production"
(which is nothing but destruction of the ecosystems) and "consumption"
(which is nothing but waste). Social ecology. Don't work, make love!
This is what I think of "the pillar of all virtues", Christian morality and
the capitalist society. These opinions are out of fashion nowadays.


DIMINUTIO AUCTORIS?

One cannot emerge more than once from the same black hole. Under heaven
there's no time for every 'counter-investigation'. This book doesn't
pretend to be exhaustive. It's just a rewriting of the notes I took when I
used to study what the bourgeois society regards as the Absolute Elsewhere.
The vastness of  the subject reminds me of the Infinite, indeed, of the
Aleph, there was always one more connection, 'til the noise became harmful
and the wind of infamy hurt my ears, then my temples started to throb, the
subject became an obsession and I couldn't help losing a little bit of my
coolness... I did my best, swimming upstream the river of indignation. An
unequal struggle, one man versus all, as in a 1970's reggae classic drawing
inspiration from a spaghetti western [...].






---
#  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl